Hearing devices that reside deep in the canal (DIC), such as the Lyric device (InSound Medical Inc., Newark Calif.) represent a major step forward in the development of hearing aids from several perspectives. Their sound quality is very high, they are effectively invisible from an external perspective, and they can reside in place for a period of several months, the residence time limit determined, in major part, by the lifetime of the battery. DIC hearing aids differ from completely-in-the-canal (CIC) hearing aids. CIC hearing aids are larger than DIC hearing aids, and reside in the outer cartilaginous portion of the ear canal, and are typically placed in the ear and removed on a daily basis. In contrast, DIC hearing aids are placed deep in the ear canal, in the bony portion of the canal very near the tympanic membrane, and can reside in that site for several months. A major factor limiting residence time is the lifetime of the battery, and as improvements in batteries extend their life, so too will lengthen the residence time of DIC hearing aids. A description of an exemplary DIC device is provided by U.S. Pat. No. 7,310,426 of Shennib, et al. (issued on Dec. 18, 2007).
A limiting factor in their ease of use and general marketability of DIC devices, however, is the fact that presently they must be inserted by a health care professional or by an individual trained in their insertion by a health care professional. Although a user can remove a DIC device with an instrument such as that described in U.S. Pat. No. 7,388,961 of Shennib, self-insertion of a device simply is not currently feasible. Insertion by a healthcare professional is necessitated by several factors, including the difficulty in handling such a small device without an instrument, the vulnerability of the hearing aid to breakage with mishandling, the impracticality of handling conventional insertion instruments without visual guidance, and the importance of not placing the hearing aid too deeply in the ear canal.
A device that allows self-insertion of deep-in-the-ear hearing aids would contribute to significantly to general acceptance and use of these DIC hearing aids in the market.